Nearly half of residential insurance claims from Hurricanes Helene and Milton haven’t been paid

Delegation members tell the Department of Agriculture to hurry up with hurricane relief.

Nearly a half year after Hurricanes Helene and Milton slammed Florida, a new analysis from Realtor.com shows only about half of all residential property claims have been paid by insurance companies.

Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) figures show there were a combined 329,523 residential property claims in the state between the two storms. For Milton, some 104,789 residential property damage claims out of 264,763 total have been closed without payment from insurance companies. Helene saw a total of 64,760 residential property claims were filed, while 34,923 claims were closed without payment.

The Realtor.com report said much of the gap between claims and payment is largely due to the extent of floodwater damage, which can lead to more coverage headaches. Wind damage is more readily addressed by insurance companies in the aftermath of hurricanes.

“In Florida, the storms did much of their damage through high winds, which is covered by traditional homeowners insurance. Both also caused flooding, although that is typically covered separately by a federally administered program, which is not reflected in the state insurance data,” the Realtor.com analysis found.

The confusion between federal relief and private insurance coverage often causes the delays, or the federal flood payments simply aren’t tabulated by the state. Many homeowners also have large deductible stipulations in their coverage, which causes a gap between the amount of the damage claims.

Beyond residential damage, there were vast numbers of claims for other coverage from both storms last year. There were 22,141 commercial property claims attributed to Milton and 3,895 of those claims were closed without payment, according to OIR.

Helene prompted 6,067 commercial property insurance claims. Out of those, there were 1,243 claims that were not paid.

In all, Milton caused a total of $4.023 billion in estimated insurance losses in Florida as of OIR’s Feb. 11 tabulations. Helene amounted to $2.16 billion in estimated insurance losses as of Jan. 15.